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Komen Foundation Official Resigns over Abortion-Breast Cancer Dispute

Appeals Judge Blasts Supreme Court Over Roe

Abortion Center Closes in Erie

House Hearings: Post-Abortion Depression

Back-Alley Abortion Film Perpetuates Abortion Myths…

 

KOMEN BREAST CANCER FOUNDATION OFFICIAL RESIGNS OVER ABORTION DISPUTE— A medical research analyst for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has resigned, upset that Komen denies the link between abortion and breast cancer and has sent large grants to Planned Parenthood.

When confronted with data showing Komen made donations to Planned Parenthood, the information didn’t sit well with Komen analyst Eve Sanchez Silver.

“The Foundation has done so much for so many women through its programs and research grants,” Sanchez Silver. “But this revelation about Planned Parenthood and [Komen] indicates a well thought out funding strategy.” According to former Komen public relations director Kristin Kelly, Komen affiliates awarded $38.4 million in grants to support community outreach programs in 2003.

That figure includes 21 grants to their local Planned Parenthood chapters totaling more than $475,000. Sanchez Silver, a two-time breast cancer survivor and Komen’s Hispanic advisor, said the decision to send Komen money to Planned Parenthood came at a time when local Komen affiliates were struggling to find enough funds to keep afloat. [http://www.lifenews.com/nat834.html, LifeNews.com; N Valko RN, 30Sept04]

HOUSE HEARINGS: POST-ABORTION DEPRESSION — House members considered the effects of depression that sometimes occur in women after a pregnancy [9/04]. Given this opportunity to explore the health effects of a pregnancy, one panel discussed the effects of abortion on women.

Unfortunately, pro-abortion advocates on the committee refused to even consider the fact that some women may suffer from post-abortion depression. Their approach to the issue is to ignore the health and safety of women if such consideration tarnishes the image of abortion.

Yet, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), upwards of 40 percent of all women have had an abortion by the time they’re 45, so the effects of abortion on women need to be studied if for no other reason than to inform women of the possible effects of their choice. Congressman Pitts (R-PA) introduced a bill to consider this much-neglected issue.  [Legislation to Provide for Research On, and Services for Individuals With, Post-Abortion Depression and Psychosis http://www.frc.org/index.cfm?i=BS04I02&f=WU04I26&t=e; Capitol Hill hearing 29Sept04; FRC, 30Sept04]

ABORTION CENTER CLOSES, AWAITS HIRING OF DOCTOR — Erie’s only abortion clinic will remain closed until it can hire a doctor. American Women’s Services has not performed abortions since July 16, the last day that abortion provider Gerald Applegate, M.D., was seen at the clinic.

The Erie clinic’s name and address have been removed from the parent company’s Web site, www.americanwomensservices.com. “As soon as we hire a doctor, we will reopen,” said Linda Locke, AWS’ chief operating officer. “We look forward to offering women professional services as soon as we can.”

The clinic opened 19Sept03, providing the first legal abortions in Erie County in more than 20 years. It provided 337 abortions between 9/03- end of 3/04, the most recent month for which statistics are available from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Applegate and Harvey Bookman, M.D., had both been providing abortions at AWS, but Bookman was fired April 20 because he was practicing without the proper medical license. Neither Applegate nor Locke would say whether Applegate quit or was fired. Applegate’s license is currently on probation. He failed to maintain medical records when prescribing controlled substances to his wife, Karen Applegate, on 86 occasions. AWS currently has 12 clinics in four states – PA, NJ, MD & VA. [Erie Times-News 9Sept04, David Bruce; 20 Sep 04 Pro-Life E-News http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040909/NEWS02/1090904]

BACK-ALLEY ABORTION FILM — Venice film festival, “Vera Drake,” is a film perpetuating the myth of the so-called back-alley abortion.

Former prominent U.S. abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson admitted that he and his abortion co-conspirators created hugely inflated statistics about maternal deaths caused by illegal abortions to soften the public and establishment to accept abortion on demand. It worked. Since then, the use of grossly inflated numbers of illegal abortions and deaths of mothers from those abortions has been a tactic abortion activists around the world have used to change laws.

To dispel the myth of the supposed extent of back-alley abortions that went on prior to legalized abortion in the West, www.roevwade.org documents that, before abortion was legal, 90 percent of illegal abortions were committed in the U.S. by trained and licensed physicians.

Also, the death rate from illegal abortions was probably closer to 1,400 per year before the introduction of antibiotics in 1941, thereafter dropping to a rate of 250 per year. It steadily declined until legalization, at which point the number of deaths from abortion actually climbed. See http://www.roevwade.org/illegalmyths.html for documentation of the myth of the so-called back-alley abortion. [LifeSiteNews.com, 13Sept; N Valko RN, 15Sept04]
 
JUDGE BLASTS SUPREME COURT OVER ROE: Appeals panel jurist calls decision ‘exercise of raw judicial power’
Though she voted not to reopen the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, Judge Edith Jones on the 3-judge 5th Circuit Court of Appeals nevertheless hammered the Supreme Court that handed down the original ruling, saying it was an “exercise of raw judicial power.”  The appeals panel dismissed the case, which was designed to overturn the 1973 decision, saying the issue was moot because it did not present a “live case or controversy.”

The case had been brought by Norma McCorvey, the woman who was represented as “Jane Roe” in the original case but since then has become an avid pro-life activist. “If courts were to delve into the facts underlying Roe’s balancing scheme with present-day knowledge, they might conclude that the woman’s ‘choice’ is far more risky and less beneficial, and the child’s sentience far more advanced, than the Roe Court knew.”

Jones wrote, “The perverse result of the Court’s having determined through constitutional adjudication this fundamental social policy, which affects over a million women and unborn babies each year, is that the facts no longer matter. This is a peculiar outcome for a Court so committed to ‘life’ that it struggles with the particular facts of dozens of death penalty cases each year.” [bold added]

McCorvey’s attorneys say they will likely appeal the case, Norma McCorvey v. Bill Hill, to the Supreme Court. Among McCorvey’s 5,437 pages of evidence are affidavits from more than 1,000 women who testify having an abortion has had devastating emotional, physical and psychological effects.

McCorvey launched a pro-life organization called Roe No More; she said she was “used” by abortion-rights attorneys in their quest t
o lega
lize abortion. [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40490 17Sept04; N Valko RN]